They are exactly the same expression, with different possible kanji/kana combinations that can be seen. Usually the one we are actually testing, like いい事 will be the most common by far.
We actually discussed the triangle a few days ago amongst the content team, and how we can remove it/replace it with something better for vocabulary. Basically it is ‘extra information’, not exactly a caution section as such. We want users to easily be able to see it, but not to think that it is super important. The triangle makes it seem far more important than it is.
We will implement a fix for this as soon as we come up with a good alternative.
This is also something we discussed recently amongst the content team, and came to the following conclusion. Vocab does not necessarily face the same memorization problem that grammar does.
With Grammar, memorization of a sentence and therefore memorization of the grammar point itself means that you’re accidentally remembering the grammar whenever you see that sentence, rather than by understanding the nuance of the grammar point.
However, with plain vocabulary, this is kind of exactly what you want to happen. When you are learning a word, the goal is simply to memorize that word, and what it means. For example, if you see a sentence about a car crash, and then suddenly remember 事故, you’ve already succeeded in remembering the target word.
On top of that, the context of the sentence itself is what made you remember the word. We are hoping that perhaps this translates well to using words in the correct context when you actually want to use them yourself. If you are constantly reminded of that word when seeing specific sentences, hopefully those kinds of situations in real life also start to remind you of that word, and lead to natural usage.
These are our main considerations at the moment about how this ‘problem with grammar sentence memorization’, is actually a strength when it comes to vocabulary. What are your thoughts?
This is actually a very well thought out argument, with a lot of points I hadn’t considered, in favor of context for vocab (which I’m for), and I wouldn’t disagree with anything you’ve argued.
Just to make sure we’re on the same page, let me give a more clear example of what I mean (and maybe someone can tell me if I’m just crazy, or if it’s a realistic concern) because I’m not sure if what I’m concerned with is addressed in your reply.
Take for example, 丸 -
The example sentences (in sequence) start with
答え。。。
数。。。
コンパス。。。
My weird monkey brain would associate the sounds 「まる」 with these first few words as they’re easy to latch onto, and don’t take much time to recognize the shape of, rather than with the actual meaning. Instead of actually reading the full sentences to gain the context they give that would lead me to the concept of “circle”, I would subconsciously memorize the (assumedly) unique pattern in these first few words and just know to type “maru” without actually thinking about what that means.
Idk if this actually makes any sense, and honestly the more I think about it the more I confuse myself with it, but it is something I’ve noticed during my own grammar studies on Bunpro.
As an example from my review session today, I missed 何しろ on this context sentence:
「文法ちゃん：どうしてそんなに悲しそうにしてるの？
メガネくん：悲しいのも当然だろ。____ガールフレンドにフラれたんだから。」
When it popped back up again, I knew instantly just from seeing the 文法ちゃん and メガネくん that it was going to be 何しろ, since I had missed it earlier in the session, without looking at anything else in the sentences.
As an example from my grammar review session today, I missed 何しろ on this context sentence:
「文法ちゃん：どうしてそんなに悲しそうにしてるの？
メガネくん：悲しいのも当然だろ。____ガールフレンドにフラれたんだから。」
When it popped back up again, I knew instantly just from seeing the 文法ちゃん and メガネくん that it was going to be 何しろ, since I had missed it earlier in the session, without looking at anything else in the dialogue.
It’s possible this is exactly what you were saying isn’t an issue with vocab, and also that I’m one of a very select few weirdos who think this way, but I just want to make sure I explained myself clearly as I’m not sure I did so earlier (wanted to give a more concrete example like this but was strapped for time).
Does this help clarify my thoughts, or were they already clear in the first place?
When is the next vocab update?
The main issues I have are:
punctuation:
accented words like café that’s right should be treated the same as that is right
for それでは the answer “well then” is marked wrong and the correct answer is “well then …”
custom synonyms
Other than these, thank you so much for the vocab update.
It’s really great and helpful!!
Edit: one more thing
I’d like the ability to sort items in deck.
For eg. in my N5 vocab deck, I’d like to see only learnt/unlearned items etc.
That’ll be great to add new items for reviews.
Thank you.
I see what you mean here. From what you are saying, I would assume that it is only a problem under one condition, the condition that you remember the target word but not actually what it means.
The reason that many of the grammar points on Bunpro are considered ‘grammar points’ rather than ‘vocabulary’ (despite the fact that they are just vocabulary in some cases), is because they are very very flexible vocabulary.
What I mean by this is that they may have several meanings, or may fill very specific roles in sentences that regular words like ‘rock’, ‘coffee’, ‘tired’, ‘hungry’ may not. With grammar, the goal is usually to remember which of the (potentially many) nuances is being highlighted in a specific sentence, and why.
However, when it comes to vocabulary, the goal is rarely to remember the specific nuance, and more just to remember the actual word. Naturally there are still many vocabulary words that have quite flexible meanings, and lean closer to what one may consider grammar/a regular pattern.
For your example of 丸, and specifically this part -
答え。。。
数。。。
コンパス。。。
It is only a problem if you don’t actually know what 丸 is. However, if you know that it means ‘circle’, then you would consider that a successful review. In saying that, I do think that memorization is still something we might want to avoid in some regard, and therefore maybe showing the sentences in a randomized order would be enough to not instantly jog your memory of the word.
Your example of 何しろ is a good example of how this process can sometimes backfire. From what you explained, you know 何しろ, you are able to recall the expression perfectly, but you are not able to recall the information related to 何しろ that would help you figure out that it is one of the potential answers that could go in the context sentence that you missed. I can sympathize with this and it used to happen to me a loooooot (still does)
I guess I really only have two potential solutions right now. 1 - If the sentences are shown in a random order, hopefully it will combat this a bit. I also assume that most people will study more vocab than grammar, meaning it will be a lot harder to remember individual sentences from a far larger pool of sentences. 2 - If you remember a word, but don’t actually remember the meaning of that word, I would input the answer, but then perhaps undo/put in the wrong answer so that it doesn’t go up in SRS level. This would require a bit of self discipline though on the part of the user if they got something right, but actually felt that they didn’t know it.
This is completely true, and a good reason that this is maybe less than a big deal However my old WK review sessions where I missed kanji/vocab on the meaning and not the reading would suggest it’s certainly an existing scenario.
Agreed on both of these points
This was really the functionality that I was trying to argue for, as I think it definitely helps combat the specific issue we’re currently discussing. That’s not to say I don’t also see the benefits of all sentences being shown at once, and it will ultimately be up to you and the rest of the content team which has pros that outweigh the cons (or whether to incorporate the seemingly ever-popular “both” option using a toggle ).
I just want to add that I appreciate the time and care you’ve put into these responses! Especially for such a nuanced and convoluted issue compared to many others being brought up
Just to let you know: toggling the English by pressing the space button doesn’t work in mobile Gecko-based Firefox, it just types a space. I guess it’s because the code is listening keyDown event of the whole page. Probably you need to add an event listener to the input field itself to make it work.
I do think that vocab should be tested within the context of a sentence and that it should be one sentence at a time, but that there should be many sentences per vocab. Pretty much exactly like the grammar reviews. This also keeps things consistent with the rest of the system.
[quote=“Asher, post:226, topic:42839”]
It is only a problem if you don’t actually know what 丸 is. However, if you know that it means ‘circle’, then you would consider that a successful review.[/quote]
Also, it has to be taken into account things that are assimilated to the point you start thinking directly in the new language, in this case Japanese. For example, I’m a native Portuguese speaker, but I also speak English, Spanish, French, German, and Italian. In all these languages, specially English and German, I’m so used to think directly in the language there are a lot of words, or even some grammar topics that I know, I can define them on the original language, but I would be hard pressed to come up with a direct translation to Portuguese right on the spot, sometimes I really have to think things through to explain in Portuguese a thought that I had in other language. Because in the end, each language comes with its own way of organizing and expressing thoughts and there are a lot of these nuances that simply can’t be translated directly from one to the other.
I agree that pure rote memorization of phrases isn’t very helpful for grammar, but some amount memorization may help too. For instance, if you have memorized a few very iconic example sentences of a certain grammatical nuance, it can go a long way in developing a greater understanding of the nuance by direct comparison of the memorized sentences and the new ones you encounter along the way.
This is something that works even in mathematics, we usually learn a few iconic proofs or solutions to certai types of problems, you repeat them until it becomes second nature, then as you find other problems that are variations of those, or problems that you could use the logic of the problems you know by heart as an starting point or as an analogy to the new problem at hand, then you have a far easier time not only answering the new problem, but you start to draw relations and connections between subjects, problems, solution techniques, in essence once you start using what you learned with those basic examples and apply it in multiple contexts, you develop an automatic intuition for those kind of things. An intuition that, otherwise, would take far, far more time to develop if you never repeated those few iconic solution until you could do them on your sleep.
But both for grammar and for math, just memorizing doesn’t help much, you have to memorize the right thing and learn to use it to expand your knowledge and understanding by comparing and adapting it to new contexts.
Because in the end, we have to be realistic, you can SRS Grammar and Vocabulary for your whole life thinking that, at some point in the future, you’ll get the nuances right. But you only, truly, get these nuances when you start using the language in other contexts and comparing the few sentences we learn here with what is out there, on books, tv shows, social networks, comics, etc.
That’s why I usually advise anyone that asks me how I could I managed to learn multiple languages and I’m learning a new one (Japanese), you should simply pick the basic grammar, and either SRS a basic vocabulary set or pick the plain ol’ dictionary (or dictionary app), and throw yourself head on into reading as soon as possible. Speaking, listening and writing are very important too and you can’t learn the language properly without investing a lot of time on them, but at the beginning, reading has a higher payback for the amount of time invested, unless you have to use the new language on a daily basis, in this case speaking/listening is the way to go.
Specially if you do your readings as an iterative process, you can get good results very fast. So instead of waiting to be able to pick up a lot of nuances, just start with the plain direct meaning on the first read, then as you study more grammar, vocabulary, train you speaking, listening and writing skills and specially as you pick the quirks of the language – the way the languagge comes up with its own way of thinking, and with elements derived from the social structure that gave it rise – and if you iteratively pick up the same stuff and read it again later, then at each new reading you can get a new layer of context and nuance, and then as you repeat the process you’ll keep improving your understanding of context and nuance, until you get to a point that truly get to understand the language.
In this situation, I see a benefit to having a some contextualized example sentences in memory, and use them to make comparison with the sentences you find in other contexts while reading, and this way, using the language in context, finally get a hang of the various nuances. Because lets be realistic, you can’t get a hang on a lot of nuance from a few phrases on SRS, that’s just the starting point to start using the language faster than it otherwise would be. Really understanding nuance requires a lot of exposition to native material, not just repetition of grammar points and vocabulary.
Good points! It is very true that internalization of the new language itself is an important step, and really isn’t harmed too much by memorization.
In native English (and I assume many other languages), memorization actually plays a pretty huge role at a certain point. For example the memorization of movie quotes/memes/etc. They may not seem important on the surface, but culturally it is a huge part of language.
We plan to add more filter options and searchable parameters in the near future (including an overhaul on the grammar search). If you have any suggestions on parameters or filters you must have, please don’t hesitate to let us know!
Vocab Notes!
Now, you have the option to make notes on the words that you are learning, in a similar way to how the note system works for grammar.
We hope that this will provide a place for you to add extra example sentences, mnemonics, your own links to external sources, etc.
Vocab Synonyms
You can now add synonyms to any vocab word. These synonyms will become accepted alternate answers when doing manual input vocab reviews.
Adding synonyms is not case sensitive, and each word just needs to be separated by a comma.
Split Reviews
There is now a setting in your General Settings under the “Review” section called “Split Reviews”.
It will split the “Reviews” button on your dashboard into two separate options, one for grammar and one for vocab. You can still use the “Review” button in the navigation to get a mixed queue.
As always, we really appreciate all of the feedback everyone has provided to help guide the development of these new features. We look forward to hearing your thoughts about these new changes
One tiny thing that still needs improvement is the sensitivity to incorrect entry, which aren’t even necessarily misspellings.
A couple of examples:
I just did the review for ‘peanut’ and I accidentally typed it as ‘peantu’. The last two letters being the wrong way around was recognised by BP as being one-third incorrect, therefore breaking your 80% rule, so my review was classed as incorrect.
On one of the question words (I think it’s ‘why’), when I type ‘why’ for the answer, it’s incorrect because the answer BP has is ‘why …?’ - of course that can easily be fixed with the new synonym feature, but I still think it could do with a review.
さん is also marked as incorrect when I type ‘Mr’, because the correct answer is ‘Mr.’ - again, something that can be remedied with the synonym feature but could probably do with being looked at.
@Asher
I agree, there are lots of situations where repetition and memorization plays a big role in the learning process. Not only in getting the quirks of the language and the culture behind it, but, as I’ve said, a set of well constructed examples could be memorized and used to improve knowledge by applying them to various contexts.
It is easier to see the value of repetition and memorization on vocab because in this case you either know the meaning of a word or you don’t, and there’s almost no middle ground between these extremes.
Memorization plays a considerable role in Grammar too, but unlike vocab, where knowledge is dichotomic (you either know or you don’t), in Grammar there is a lot of middle ground between knowing or not knowing, there are a lot of things that are context dependant, situation specific, or even altogether subjective. All of this limits the usefulness of simple rote repetition for Grammar. In the case of Grammar, repetition alone doesn’t cut through, you have to apply it in context.
That’s why in the last two paragraphs of my previous post I mostly described what is essentially the Spiral Approach to thinking, teaching and learning, which I often use when I’m teaching undergraduate students, and to me works very well to learning languages too. Interestingly, SRS Systems can have a huge good impact when using this approach, and BunPro is helping me a lot with that.
I like the new Vocab Beta and also have a few suggestions:
on the dashboard there seems to be no link to the “decks”-page (so unless you dont know the link, you wont find it or am I overseeing it?)
I can change my “standard” study-deck to a vocab-deck, but I would like to have one for grammar and one for vocabs (like the new rewiew-buttons)
So far the feature seams really good and I am sure it will improve even further in the future. Thanks for the good work (I am really getting my money worth for my lifetime membership ).
This is amazing! Thanks for all the work and effort, truly appreciate this website. The Wanikani sync feature is also so nice and thoughtful.
As for feedback, overall very happy and grateful for the update! I was wondering if there was a way or option to disable, or push the vocab from Wanikani to the back of the deck queue. As someone who is currently making his way up the Wanikani grind (only level 11), I think it would be a nice feature to be able to prioritize the vocab that will not eventually show up for me on Wanikani; like the Wanikani sync that already exists but for vocab that is not yet “known.”
My Problem with the Deck is how its built/sorted. I dont like how its sorted by the first letter. like you learn 34 Words with an お as the first letter >in a row<. I have never seen that before and its pretty exhausting tbh. Maybe sort it by frequency or any other way.
However my old WK review sessions where I missed kanji/vocab on the meaning and not the reading would suggest it’s certainly an existing scenario.
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